Cécilia Lopes: the atypical journey of a talented entrepreneur
The takeover of SAGE’s leading integrator is also a personal success story for Cecilia Lopes. The young woman, associate general manager of EBS Group France, took the risk of setting up the company at the age of only 27. Nine years later, she is at the head of a flourishing successful SME, with more than 80 employees and already nearly 1,800 clients in the portfolio. EBS Group offers the double particularity of being headed by a woman – still a rarity in the IT universe – and of respecting strict parity in the composition of its management committee.
The repurchase of APTETUDE Co, finally, has a strong symbolic character for Cécilia Lopes. The latter, in fact, had made her debut there before attempting the adventure of entrepreneurship.
APTETUDE Co: a benchmark in SAGE integration
The name of ABILITY Co is probably no stranger to many managers, CFOs, HRDs or CIOs working in small and medium-sized companies. For more than thirty years, the group has positioned itself as an almost essential reference for many SMEs / ETIs, wishing to overhaul their IT environment and improve performance.
His speciality ? Tool integration WISEa complete software suite comprising all the business software packages useful for the daily life of a company:
• Business management
• Accounting and finance ;
• Dematerialization and GED
• means of payment and dematerialization of banking flows;
• cash management ;
• customer service and CRM;
• production monitoring ;
• inventory management…
The SAGE suite, distributed by the British publisher of the same name, ranks among the three most widely used ERP solutions in the world, after Oracle and SAP. This rare and valuable expertise naturally aroused the interest of EBSGroup.
EBS Group and APTETUDE Co: a promising new synergy
Founded in 2014, EBS Group does not have the same precedence on the market as ABILITY Co, of which he has just acquired all of the shares. The company, in less than ten years, has nevertheless experienced remarkable growth, specializing in complete computer assistance for VSEs and SMEs. This includes :
• hardware audit, installation and maintenance;
• the integration and interconnection of a wide variety of management software: ERP, dematerialization of documents, HRIS, CRM, Business Intelligence, etc.
• maintenance of office equipment and printers, in partnership with XEROX.
The acquisition of ABILITY Co adds a complementary and very powerful expertise to the range of services offered by EBS Group. The company certainly already had recognized expertise in ERP integration, particularly as the leading reseller of the EBP suite in France.
The merger of the two companies, however, will allow them to merge their knowledge and skills to also offer their common expertise on the entire SAGE range for SMEs, including:
• Wise 100a very modular management solution that can be adapted to all sectors of activity and covers all of the company’s vital functions;
• Sage Business Cloud Payrollenabling remote hosting and management of the payroll function for all employees;
• Sage Business Cloud Accountingto manage the SME’s accounts directly from an online interface centralizing all working documents.
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GED, dematerialization, zero paper, accounting and payroll… The merger of the EBS Group and APTETUDE Co activities should allow the new consolidated group to multiply the solutions and expertise offered to their client companies.